Helmuth Groscurth (December 16, 1898 – April 7, 1943) was a staff and Abwehr officer in the Wehrmacht and a member of the German resistance. As an intelligence officer he was an early proponent of the Brandenburgers, commanded unconventional warfare operations in the Sudetenland, and was an active conspirator against Hitler's agenda, he was later reassigned to the regular army following his criticism of war crimes committed by German forces in Poland. After commanding an infantry battalion in the invasion of France he assumed a variety of staff roles, he was involved in the events of the Bila Tserkva massacre where he attempted to avert the killing of Jewish children.[3] He ended his active service as Karl Strecker's Chief of Staff in the 11th Army Corps, he participated in the Battle of Stalingrad and helped draft the final message from the German forces trapped there. After the surrender he contracted typhus and died while in Soviet captivity; the recovery of his diaries and papers provided a significant source for historians researching the early resistance to Hitler within the German military.

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Groscurth was a devout Protestant and conservative nationalist, born in Lüdenscheid to German theologian and priest, Reinhard Groscurth(de), his older brother, also named Reinhard, was a German lawyer who worked against corruption and Nazi influence in the Evangelical Church of Bremen. Groscurth joined the German 75th Infantry Regiment in 1916 and fought on the Western Front where he was severely wounded and taken as a POW by the British the following year. After the war he transferred to the Reichswehr and then left the military to pursue studies in agriculture, he rejoined the Reichswehr in 1924 and in 1929 was appointed as the adjunct to Erwin von Witzleben, a fellow anti-Hitler conspirator who would go on to be executed for his participation in the 20 July plot.[4]

He was recruited into the Abwehr in 1935, eventually becoming an active conspirator in the extensive network of officers within military intelligence who were part of the German resistance under the direction of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. In 1938, Canaris assigned Groscurth, now a Major, to head the Abwehr II, the "Minorities and Sabotage" section of the military intelligence service responsible for unconventional warfare in foreign countries.[1] Canaris feared the growing power of the SS in such operations, particularly its influence over Konrad Henlein, and so he sent Groscurth to the Sudetenland in the run up to the planned annexation of the Sudetenland to prepare a pro-German fifth column under the control of the Abwehr, his mission included strengthening moderate ethnic Germans in the area in the hope that a negotiated solution could be found and a war avoided. He collected intelligence on Czech defenses, planted secret arms dumps, and trained potential insurgents in sabotage; these activities angered Reinhard Heydrich and the SD, who were working to aggravate tensions in order to justify an invasion.[5]

As a part of the larger strategy of taking the Sudetenland, Hitler wanted the British to be as distracted as possible when Germany forced the issue. To this end, Canaris and Groscurth traveled to Baghdad for a secret meeting with Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Afterward Groscurth coordinated a weapons smuggling operation on behalf of Arab forces fighting the British in the Arab revolt in Palestine. Groscurth's plan set up an underground route for German weapons to be sent to by sea to Lebanon and then loaded onto local Arab fishing boats, which ferried the weapons to Palestine.[6]

Despite some successes by Abwehr elements, Henlein was greatly impressed with Hitler's victory in the Austrian Anschluss and decided to side with the radicals backed by Heydrich. Once the Germans occupied the Sudetenland, Heydrich turned on Henlein, undermining his power and murdering or imprisoning many of his friends and allies. Terrified, Henlein's wife begged Groscurth to protect them from the SS, which Groscurth and the Abwehr tried to do, with limited success. Although Henlein wasn't killed outright, he was removed from the proximity of power, only being allowed to live because of the personal relationship he had built with Hitler. After his assignment in the Sudetenland, Gorscurth successfully advocated on behalf of his subordinate Theodor von Hippel's proposal to form the Brandenburgers within Abwehr II.[7] Groscurth was replaced by Erwin von Lahousen and promoted to be the chief of Abteilung Heerwesen zbV, a newly created liaison unit between the Abwehr and the OKH; this new position proved to be key in his coordination of anti-Nazi activities between military intelligence, the regular army, and the German diplomatic corps.[5][8]

Canaris used Groscurth's new unit as a way of giving intelligence directly to senior Army commanders, with the intention of combating the growing influence of the SS and its expanding intelligence capabilities.[1] Groscurth's new duties made him extremely well-informed and connected, he used his position and the contacts that came with it to further the resistance to Hitler and the SS, including becoming one of the primary coordinators between the various elements of the Oster conspiracy.[9] On behalf of Canaris he acted as the handler for Josef Müller's covert mission to the Vatican to secure the Pope's support for the overthrow of Hitler, he went so far as to secure explosives for an assassination attempt. During these missions Groscurth took extensive notes, both for operational reference and to provide evidence of resistance to Hitler for posterity, should they fail.[10] Additionally Groscurth was active in maintaining communications between the anti-Hitler elements in Germany and the Chamberlain government; these communications attempted to create a deal with the British to ensure the Allies would not attack Germany if Hitler could be deposed. After Himmler provoked outrage in the Wehrmacht with his directive that SS men should breed as many children of "good blood" as possible, regardless of the marital status of the mother, Groscurth actively and publicly campaigned to have the order rescinded.[11]

In December 1939, Groscurth traveled throughout the Western Front disseminating reports and memorandums of atrocities committed during the invasion of Poland passed to him by fellow objector Johannes Blaskowitz in an attempt to convince commanders there to act against Hitler,[12][11] he visited Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, Erwin von Witzleben, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Fedor von Bock, but only Leeb was willing to take any official action, authoring a complaint to Hitler. This overall effort proved to be unsuccessful and, along with his open criticism of SS policies, created pressure on the Chief of the Army Walther von Brauchitsch from Himmler and other sources, leading to Groscurth's eventual dismissal from military intelligence by January 1940,[13][14] he was then reassigned to command an infantry battalion in the West where he took part in the invasion of France.[4]

After France he became the General Staff Officer for the 295th Infantry Division. In August 1941, Groscurth attempted to prevent the execution of approximately 90 Jewish children in Bila Tserkva.[3] Groscurth became aware of the children's situation after several Heer soldiers confronted the SS Sergeant in charge of guarding a church locked full of crying children who had been recently orphaned by the execution of their parents. After being turned away by the SS, the soldiers went to their chaplains, who in turn went to Groscurth.[15][16]

On 8 August 1941, Groscurth reported his concerns to the Chief of the General Staff of Army Group South, General Georg von Sodenstern. Although Sodenstern took his report, he told Groscurth that he was unable to intervene. Groscurth continued his objection all the way to Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau at a meeting in the field commander's office on 21 August 1941. Reichenau echoed the position of the local SS Feldkommandant(de), Josef Riedl, who "regarded the extermination of Jewish women and children as absolutely necessary." Also present was Paul Blobel, the head of Einsatzgruppe C, who responded by saying any commanders in the army who objected should be made to carry out the executions themselves. Some reports assert that Groscurth was subsequently beaten, although Groscurth did not mention this in his own report on the matter.[17][15][16][18] The next day the SS took the children out to a mass grave where they were all shot by the Ukrainian auxiliaries. To the displeasure of Reichenau, Groscurth filed an official report with the army, protesting the killings as inhumane and demoralizing for the army troops in the vicinity, calling it "a horror."[17][verification needed] The criticisms which Groscurth made in his report were, however, directed exclusively at the failure by local commanders to carry out such mistreatment and killing of children away from German troops, some of whom had already been disturbed by the children's "whimpering". Groscurth did not, it appears, object to the children's plight itself but rather the inefficiency of the process and the potential detrimental effect on the fighting spirit of nearby German soldiers. If Groscurth believed that what was being done to, and was planned for, the children was morally wrong in itself, he did not say so in his report.

Despite his public rebuke, Groscurth was promoted to Colonel and appointed Chief of the General Staff for XI Army Corps, commanded by Karl Strecker, which was subsequently committed to the Battle of Stalingrad; as the situation of the 6th Army in Stalingrad deteriorated, Groscurth again became convinced that the only way to avoid calamity was to remove Hitler. To this end he asked a friend, Major Alred von Waldersee, to travel to Berlin and contact officers who might listen and act. Waldersee first met with Friedrich Olbricht, and Ludwig Beck. Beck advised Waldersee to travel to see Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel in Paris as well as solicit Gerd von Rundstedt for support, his efforts proved fruitless.[19] Groscurth and Strecker were the last senior German officers trapped in the city to surrender their command and, on the morning of 2 February, drafted the final communication sent by the 6th Army, signing it "Long Live Germany!" This was an intentional deviation from the standard "Heil Hitler," although the signal was changed before reaching Hitler himself, to include a "Long live the Führer!" Strecker, Groscurth, and the rest of the 6th Army were taken as prisoners of war and marched to labor camps in the Soviet Union. Groscurth was placed in an officer's prison camp in Frolovo where he later died of typhus.[19]

Groscurth was one of the first Army officers to join the resistance[20] and became known, along with Oster, as the "soul of the Resistance within the Abwehr" since the summer of 1938.[21] After the war Groscurth's diary was published, revealing his role as one of the key members of the Oster Conspiracy, he was also one of the authors of a secret memorandum written in October 1939 titled, "An imminent disaster," with diplomats Hasso von Etzdorf and Erich Kordt, outlining a potential coup against Hitler.[22] His diaries and the documents that he saved gave important insights for historians into the workings of the early resistance to Hitler by conservatives and military officers, as well as the process of the eventual submission of the Wehrmacht to Nazi policies and SS atrocities,[23][9] his papers from handling Müller's secret activities in Rome also provided a substantial body of evidence on the correspondence between the German resistance, the British government, and the Vatican.[24] Historian Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen described Groscurth as "a determined opponent of Nazism".[25]

Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as an academic discipline in universities and seminaries. Theology is the study of deities or their scriptures in order to discover what they have revealed about themselves, it occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but especially with epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but willing and able to interact with the natural world and, in particular, to reveal themselves to humankind. While theology has turned into a secular field, religious adherents still consider theology to be a discipline that helps them live and understand concepts such as life and love and that helps them lead lives of obedience to the deities they follow or worship. Theology is derived from the Greek theologia, which derived from Τheos, meaning "God", -logia, meaning "utterances, sayings, or oracles" which had passed into Latin as theologia and into French as théologie.

The English equivalent "theology" had evolved by 1362. The sense the word has in English depends in large part on the sense the Latin and Greek equivalents had acquired in patristic and medieval Christian usage, although the English term has now spread beyond Christian contexts. Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity"; the term can, however, be used for a variety of fields of study. Theology begins with the assumption that the divine exists in some form, such as in physical, mental, or social realities, that evidence for and about it may be found via personal spiritual experiences or historical records of such experiences as documented by others; the study of these assumptions is not part of theology proper but is found in the philosophy of religion, through the psychology of religion and neurotheology. Theology aims to structure and understand these experiences and concepts, to use them to derive normative prescriptions for how to live our lives.

Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument to help understand, test, defend or promote any myriad of religious topics. As in philosophy of ethics and case law, arguments assume the existence of resolved questions, develop by making analogies from them to draw new inferences in new situations; the study of theology may help a theologian more understand their own religious tradition, another religious tradition, or it may enable them to explore the nature of divinity without reference to any specific tradition. Theology may be used to propagate, reform, or justify a religious tradition or it may be used to compare, challenge, or oppose a religious tradition or world-view. Theology might help a theologian address some present situation or need through a religious tradition, or to explore possible ways of interpreting the world. Greek theologia was used with the meaning "discourse on god" in the fourth century BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii, Ch. 18. Aristotle divided theoretical philosophy into mathematike and theologike, with the last corresponding to metaphysics, for Aristotle, included discourse on the nature of the divine.

Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of such discourse: mythical and civil. Theologos related to theologia, appears once in some biblical manuscripts, in the heading to the Book of Revelation: apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy, "the revelation of John the theologos". There, the word refers not to John the "theologian" in the modern English sense of the word but—using a different sense of the root logos, meaning not "rational discourse" but "word" or "message"—one who speaks the words of God, logoi toy theoy; some Latin Christian authors, such as Tertullian and Augustine, followed Varro's threefold usage, though Augustine used the term more to mean'reasoning or discussion concerning the deity'In patristic Greek Christian sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and inspired knowledge of, teaching about, the essential nature of God. The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of academic study, dealing with the motionless, incorporeal reality.

Boethius' definition influenced medieval Latin usage. In scholastic Latin sources, the term came to denote the rational study of the doctrines of the Christian religion, or the academic discipline which investigated the coherence and implications of the language and claims of the Bible and of the theological tradition. In the Renaissance with FlorentinePlatonist apologists of Dante's poetics, the distinction between "poetic theology" and "revealed" or Biblical theology serves as steppingstone for a revival of philosophy as independent of theological authority, it is in this last sense, theology as an academic discipline involving rational study of Christian teaching

The Western Front was the main theatre of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium gaining military control of important industrial regions in France; the tide of the advance was turned with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, which changed little except during early 1917 and in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this front; the attacks employed massive artillery massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire and artillery inflicted severe casualties during attacks and counter-attacks and no significant advances were made. Among the most costly of these offensives were the Battle of Verdun, in 1916, with a combined 700,000 casualties, the Battle of the Somme in 1916, with more than a million casualties, the Battle of Passchendaele, in 1917, with 487,000 casualties.

To break the deadlock of trench warfare on the Western Front, both sides tried new military technology, including poison gas and tanks. The adoption of better tactics and the cumulative weakening of the armies in the west led to the return of mobility in 1918; the German Spring Offensive of 1918 was made possible by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended the war of the Central Powers against Russia and Romania on the Eastern Front. Using short, intense "hurricane" bombardments and infiltration tactics, the German armies moved nearly 100 kilometres to the west, the deepest advance by either side since 1914, but the result was indecisive; the inexorable advance of the Allied armies during the second half of 1918 caused a sudden collapse of the German armies and persuaded the German commanders that defeat was inevitable. The German government surrendered in the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the terms of peace were settled by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. At the outbreak of the First World War, the German Army, with seven field armies in the west and one in the east, executed a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan, moving through neutral Belgium to attack France, turning southwards to encircle the French Army and trap it on the German border.

The Western Front was the place where the most powerful military forces in Europe, the German and French armies and where the war was decided. Belgian neutrality had been guaranteed by Britain under the Treaty of London, 1839. Armies under German generals Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bülow attacked Belgium on 4 August 1914. Luxembourg had been occupied without opposition on 2 August; the first battle in Belgium was the Siege of Liège. Liège was well surprised the German Army under Bülow with its level of resistance. German heavy artillery was able to demolish the main forts within a few days. Following the fall of Liège, most of the Belgian field army retreated to Antwerp, leaving the garrison of Namur isolated, with the Belgian capital, falling to the Germans on 20 August. Although the German army bypassed Antwerp, it remained a threat to their flank. Another siege followed at Namur; the French deployed five armies on the frontier. The French Plan XVII was intended to bring about the capture of Alsace-Lorraine.

On 7 August, the VII Corps attacked Alsace to capture Colmar. The main offensive was launched on 14 August with the First and Second Armies attacking toward Sarrebourg-Morhange in Lorraine. In keeping with the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans withdrew while inflicting severe losses upon the French; the French Third and Fourth Armies advanced toward the Saar River and attempted to capture Saarburg, attacking Briey and Neufchateau but were repulsed. The French VII Corps captured Mulhouse after a brief engagement on 7 August but German reserve forces engaged them in the Battle of Mulhouse and forced a French retreat; the German Army swept through Belgium, razing villages. The application of "collective responsibility" against a civilian population further galvanised the allies. Newspapers condemned the German invasion, violence against civilians and destruction of property, which became known as the "Rape of Belgium". After marching through Belgium and the Ardennes, the Germans advanced into northern France in late August, where they met the French Army, under Joseph Joffre, the divisions of the British Expeditionary Force under Field Marshal Sir John French.

A series of engagements known as the Battle of the Frontiers ensued, which included the Battle of Charleroi and the Battle of Mons. In the former battle the French Fifth Army was destroyed by the German 2nd and 3rd Armies and the latter delayed the German advance by a day. A general Allied retreat followed, resulting in more clashes at the Battle of Le Cateau, the Siege of Maubeuge and the Battle of St. Quentin; the German Army came within 70 km of Paris but at the First Battle of the Marne and British troops were able to force a German retreat by exploiting a gap which appeared between the 1st and 2nd Armies, ending the German advance into France. The German Army retreated north of the Aisne River and dug in there, establishing the beginnings of a static western front, to last for the next three years. Following this German retirement, the opposing forces made reciprocal outflanking manoeuvres, known as the Race for the S

The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine came to be known as "The Great Revolt", was a nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration of the Palestine Mandate, demanding Arab independence and the end of the policy of open-ended Jewish immigration and land purchases with the stated goal of establishing a "Jewish National Home". The dissent was directly influenced by the Qassamite rebellion, following the killing of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam in 1935, as well as the declaration by Hajj Amin al-Husseini of 16 May 1936 as'Palestine Day' and calling for a General Strike; the revolt was branded by many in the Jewish Yishuv as "immoral and terroristic" comparing it to fascism and nazism. Ben Gurion however described Arab causes as fear of growing Jewish economic power, opposition to mass Jewish immigration and fear of the English identification with Zionism; the general strike lasted from April to October 1936. The revolt consisted of two distinct phases.

The first phase was directed by the urban and elitistHigher Arab Committee and was focused on strikes and other forms of political protest. By October 1936, this phase had been defeated by the British civil administration using a combination of political concessions, international diplomacy and the threat of martial law; the second phase, which began late in 1937, was a violent and peasant-led resistance movement provoked by British repression in 1936 that targeted British forces. During this phase, the rebellion was brutally suppressed by the British Army and the Palestine Police Force using repressive measures that were intended to intimidate the Arab population and undermine popular support for the revolt. During this phase, a more dominant role on the Arab side was taken by the Nashashibi clan, whose NDP party withdrew from the rebel Arab Higher Committee, led by the radical faction of Amin al-Husseini, instead sided with the British – dispatching "Fasail al-Salam" in coordination with the British Army against nationalist and Jihadist Arab "Fasail" units.

According to official British figures covering the whole revolt, the army and police killed more than 2,000 Arabs in combat, 108 were hanged, 961 died because of what they described as "gang and terrorist activities". In an analysis of the British statistics, Walid Khalidi estimates 19,792 casualties for the Arabs, with 5,032 dead: 3,832 killed by the British and 1,200 dead because of "terrorism", 14,760 wounded. Over ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population between 20 and 60 was killed, imprisoned or exiled. Estimates of the number of Palestinian Jews killed range from 91 to several hundred; the Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine was unsuccessful, its consequences affected the outcome of the 1948 Palestine war. It caused the British Mandate to give crucial support to pre-state Zionist militias like the Haganah, whereas on the Palestinian Arab side, the revolt forced the flight into exile of the main Palestinian Arab leader of the period, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – Haj Amin al-Husseini.

In 1930 Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam organized and established the Black Hand, an anti-Zionist and anti-British militant organization. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants and by 1935 he had enlisted between 200 and 800 men, they were engaged in a campaign of vandalizing trees planted by farmers and British-constructed rail lines. In November 1935, two of his men engaged in a firefight with the Palestine Police patrol hunting fruit thieves and a policeman was killed. Following the incident, the police launched a manhunt and surrounded al-Qassam in a cave near Ya'bad. In the ensuing battle, al-Qassam was killed; the death of al-Qassam generated widespread outrage among Palestinian Arabs. Huge crowds accompanied Qassam's body to his grave in Haifa; the dissent in Palestine was influenced by the discovery in October 1935 at the port of Jaffa of a large arms shipment destined for the Haganah, sparking Arab fears of a Jewish military takeover of Palestine, Jewish immigration peaked in 1935, just months before Palestinian Arabs began a full-scale, nationwide revolt.

In the four years between 1933 and 1936 more than 164,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, between 1931 and 1936 the Jewish population more than doubled from 175,000 to 370,000 people, increasing the Jewish population share from 17% to 27%, bringing about a significant deterioration in relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews. The uprising began with the 1936 Anabta shooting, a 15 April 1936 roadblock that stopped a convoy of trucks on the Nablus to Tulkarm road during which the assailants shot two Jewish drivers, Israel Khazan, killed and Zvi Dannenberg, who died five days later; the next day members of the militant Jewish faction, the Irgun and killed two Arab workers sleeping in a hut near Petah Tikva in a revenge attack. The funeral for Khazan in Tel Aviv on 17 April attracted a huge crowd, some Jews beat up Arab bystanders and destroyed property; this was followed by the Bloody Day in Jaffa, in which an Arab mob rampaged through a residential area killing Jews and destroying property.

An Arab general strike and revolt ensued that lasted until October 1936. During the summer of that year, thousands of Jewish-farmed acres and orchards were destroyed, Jewish civilians were attacked and murdered, some Jewish communities, such as those in Beisan and Acre, fled to safer areas. Economic factors played a major role in the outbreak of the Arab revolt. Palestine's fellahin, the country's peasant farmers, comprised over two-thirds of the indigenous Arab population

A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within in favour of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize to assist an external attack; this term is extended to organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force. During the Siege of Madrid in the Spanish Civil War, Nationalist general Emilio Mola told a journalist in 1936 that as his four columns of troops approached Madrid, a "fifth column" of supporters inside the city would support him and undermine the Republican government from within; the term was widely used in Spain. Ernest Hemingway used it as the title of his only play, which he wrote in Madrid while the city was being bombarded, published in 1938 in his book The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories. Though Mola's 1936 usage is regarded as the origins of the phrase, historian Christopher Clark quotes a February 1906 letter by Austrian military attaché Joseph Pomiankowski using the phrase, "...the fifth-column work of the Radicals in peacetime, which systematically poisons the attitude of our South Slav population and could, if the worst came to the worst, create serious difficulties for our army."Some writers, mindful of the origin of the phrase, use it only in reference to military operations rather than the broader and less well defined range of activities that sympathizers might engage in to support an anticipated attack.

By the late 1930s, as involvement in the war in Europe became more the term "fifth column" was used to warn of potential sedition and disloyalty within the borders of the United States. The fear of betrayal was heightened by the rapid fall of France in 1940, which some blamed on internal weakness and a pro-German "fifth column". A series of photos run in the June 1940 issue of Life magazine warned of "Signs of Nazi Fifth Column Everywhere". In a speech to the House of Commons that same month, Winston Churchill reassured the members that "Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand." In July 1940, Time magazine called fifth column talk a "national phenomenon". In August 1940 the New York Times mentioned "the first spasm of fear engendered by the success of fifth columns in less fortunate countries". One report identified participants in Nazi "fifth columns" as "partisans of authoritarian government everywhere," citing Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands.

During the Nazi invasion of Norway, the head of the Norwegian fascist party, Vidkun Quisling, proclaimed the formation of a new fascist government in control of Norway, with himself as Prime Minister, by the end of the first day of fighting. The word "quisling" soon became a byword for "collaborator" or "traitor". John Langdon-Davies, a British journalist who covered the Spanish Civil War, popularized the term "fifth column" by publishing an account called The Fifth Column in 1940; the New York Times published three editorial cartoons that used the term on August 11, 1940. In November 1940, Ralph Thomson, reviewing Harold Lavine's Fifth Column in America, a study of Communist and fascist groups in the U. S. in the New York Times, questioned his choice of that title: "the phrase has been worked so hard that it no longer means much of anything." In the US an Australian radio play, The Enemy Within, proved to be popular, though this popularity was due to the belief that the stories of fifth column activities were based on real events.

In December 1940 the Australian censors had the series banned. British reviewers of Agatha Christie's novel N or M? in 1941 used the term to describe the struggle of two British partisans of the Nazi regime working on its behalf in England during World War II. In Frank Capra's 1941 film Meet John Doe, newspaper editor Henry Connell warns the politically naïve protagonist, John Doe, about a businessman's plans to promote his own political ambitions using the apolitical John Doe Clubs. Connell says to John: "Listen, this fifth-column stuff is pretty rotten, isn't it?", identifying the businessman with anti-democratic interests in the United States. When Doe agrees, he adds: "And you'd feel like an awful sucker if you found yourself marching right in the middle of it, wouldn't you?" Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, U. S. Secretary of the NavyFrank Knox issued a statement that "the most effective Fifth Column work of the entire war was done in Hawaii with the exception of Norway."

In a column published in the Washington Post, dated 12 February 1942 respected columnist Walter Lippmann wrote of imminent danger from actions that might be taken by Japanese Americans. Titled "The Fifth Column on the Coast," he wrote of possible attacks that could be made along the on the West Coast of America that would amplify damage inflicted by a potential attack by Japanese naval and air forces. Suspicion about an active fifth column on the coast led to the forced internment of Japanese Americans. During the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in December 1941 said the indigenous Moro Muslims were "capable of dealing with Japanese fifth columnists and invaders alike". Another in the Vancouver Sun the next month described how the large population of Japanese immigrants in Davao in the Philippines welcomed the invasion: "the first assault on Davao was aided by numbers of Fifth Columnists–residents of the town". Alfred Hitchcock'sSaboteur features Robert Cummings asking for help against "fifth columnists" conspiring to sabotage the American war effort.

The Weimar Republic is an unofficial historical designation for the German state from 1918 to 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar; the official name of the republic remained Deutsches Reich unchanged from 1871, because of the German tradition of substates. Although translated as "German Empire", the word Reich here better translates as "realm", in that the term does not have monarchical connotations in itself; the Reich was changed from a constitutional monarchy into a republic. In English, the country was known as Germany. Germany became a de facto republic on 9 November 1918 when Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the German and Prussian thrones with no agreement made on a succession by his son Crown Prince Wilhelm, became a de jure republic in February 1919 when the position of President of Germany was created. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for Germany was written and adopted on 11 August 1919. In its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism as well as contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War.

Resentment in Germany towards the Treaty of Versailles was strong on the political right where there was great anger towards those who had signed the Treaty and submitted to fulfill the terms of it. The Weimar Republic fulfilled most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles although it never met its disarmament requirements and paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the western borders of the country by abandoning irredentist claims on France and Belgium, but continued to dispute the eastern borders and sought to persuade German-speaking Austria to join Germany as one of Germany's states. From 1930 onwards President Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher; the Great Depression, exacerbated by Brüning's policy of deflation, led to a surge in unemployment. In 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor with the Nazi Party being part of a coalition government.

The Nazis held two out of the remaining ten cabinet seats. Von Papen as Vice Chancellor was intended to be the "éminence grise" who would keep Hitler under control, using his close personal connection to Hindenburg. Within months, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had brought about a state of emergency: it wiped out constitutional governance and civil liberties. Hitler's seizure of power was permissive of government by decree without legislative participation; these events brought the republic to an end – as democracy collapsed, the founding of a single-party state began the dictatorship of the Nazi era. The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar, from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919, but this name only became mainstream after 1933. Between 1919 and 1933 there was no single name for the new state that gained widespread acceptance, why the old name Deutsches Reich remained though hardly anyone used it during the Weimar period.

To the right of the spectrum the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model and cringed to see the honour of the traditional word Reich associated with it. The Catholic Centre party, Zentrum favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat while on the moderate left the Chancellor's SPD preferred Deutsche Republik. By 1925, Deutsche Republik was used by most Germans, but for the anti-democratic right the word Republik was, along with the relocation of the seat of power to Weimar, a painful reminder of a government structure, imposed by foreign statesmen, along with the expulsion of Kaiser Wilhelm in the wake of massive national humiliation; the first recorded mention of the term Republik von Weimar came during a speech delivered by Adolf Hitler at a National Socialist German Worker's Party rally in Munich on 24 February 1929—it was a few weeks that the term Weimarer Republik was first used in a newspaper article. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany.

According to historian Richard J. Evans: The continued use of the term'German Empire', Deutsches Reich, by the Weimar Republic....conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond the institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to the Roman Empire. After the introduction of the republic, the flag and coat of arms of Germany were altered to reflect the political changes; the Weimar Republic without the symbols of the former Monarchy. This left the black eagle with one head, facing to the right, with open wings but closed feathers, with a red beak and claws and white highlighting. By reason of a decision of the Reich's Government I hereby announce, that the Imperial coat of arms on a gold-yellow shield shows the one headed black eagle, the head turned to the right, the wings open but with closed feathering, beak and claws in red color. If the Reich's Eagle is shown without a frame, the same charg

The Prussian officer corps had been dominated by aristocratic Junkers, but Strecker was part of a new wave of middle-class Prussians who were beginning to dominate the Army's officer ranks. Despite feelings of isolation due to his middle-class background, he excelled academically, graduating with excellent marks in all subjects, including Russian. In 1905 he joined the 152nd Infantry Regiment of the 41st Division as a company commander and battalion adjutant. In June 1914, one month before the start of the First World War, he was promoted to Lieutenant and made the regimental adjutant, he was promoted and served as both the battalion and regimental adjutant. With the outbreak of the war, Strecker's division was part of XX Corps, in the 8th Army, he participated in the battles of Marsurian Lakes. The division was transferred to the German 9th Army, arriving in the middle of October, fought in the Battles of Vistula River and Łódź as part of 9th Army's XVI Corps. In February the Division was transferred back to the 8th Army to participate in the counter-offensive into Russia where it was engaged in heavy fighting until May 1916.

After a brief rest and refit Strecker and his unit where sent south, to conduct operations in Romania. Just prior to his unit entering Bucharest in December Strecker, by a Hauptmann, was transferred to the railway department of the German General Staff; such assignments were normal for successful staff officers such as Strecker but he disliked the assignment, complaining to a friend from the regiment that he was unhappy and depressed in the impersonal and formal atmosphere of the General Staff. Six months in May 1917, Strecker was reassigned to the artillery staff of the 52nd Infantry Division on the Western Front near Paris. Between May and September Strecker filled in a variety of roles within the division, including staff positions and the commander of the division's 111th Regiment. In this time Strecker fought at the Second Battle of the Aisne and, after another period of rest and refit, the Battle of La Malmaison, he served in two other units before being injured in an automobile accident.

After recovering he returned to the front in a staff position in the 30th Division and as the deputy commander of the 121st Division in Belgium. He returned to his home unit, the 152nd Regiment, after the Armistice, this time as its commander. While back in Prussia he led the regiment on behalf of the Weimar Republic in the First Silesian uprising before being discharged from the Army. Three months before his discharge from the radically downsized Reichswehr he was preemptively commissioned as a Major in the police force of the Prussian Sicherheitspolizei, or Security Police; the new police forces were formed by the government in response to municipal police being unable to control street violence and the State's hesitation to rely on the paramilitaryFreikorps. Additionally, the new security police forces constituted an active reserve, circumventing the restriction placed on the size of Germany's military by the Treaty of Versailles, his first posting was in Münster where he married Hedwig Bonn, the daughter of the Mayor of Marienburg, having two children with her.

Strecker held anti-democratic and anti-socialist political positions and had a contempt of the Weimar government, which fact he blamed for his lack of advancement. Strecker was transferred to Berlin in 1927 to command one of the police districts in the city. In 1931 he was transferred back to Münster being promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and taking command of his old police academy there. Strecker worked with the SA to suppress left-wing demonstrations and was held in favor by the Nazi government, being promoted to Majorgeneral and given command of the newly restructured Stettin police district in April 1934. A supporter of the old Monarchist political order, Strecker welcomed the rise of Hitler; as the regime's abuses of power unfolded, Strecker began to develop reservations. According to a biography published by his grandson, Ulli Haller, Strecker disapproved of the Nazi's anti-Jewish pogroms and the purges of 1934 but he viewed the ascent of the Nazis as not unwelcome, he rejoined the Army as a Generalmajor in 1935.

He stated to a friend: "My politics are these: wherever I am, I am with my whole heart. I am now a soldier, so my politics are obedience... Whatever is or may be, I accept the whole without reservation." As with many officers of senior rank being incorporated in the expanding Wehrmacht, Strecker was given a rapid series of commands below his nominal rank in order to prepare him for larger combat commands. He was made Deputy Commander of the 34. Infanterie-Division (34th Infantry Divi

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is 8,765,000, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, the second largest city in Western Asia. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural and intellectual center for the Islamic world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, as well as hosting multiethnic and multireligious environment, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Centre of Learning". Baghdad was the largest city of the Middle Ages for much of the Abbasid era, peaking at a population of more than a million; the city was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1938, Baghdad regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arab culture.

In contemporary times, the city has faced severe infrastructural damage, most due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the subsequent Iraq War that lasted until December 2011. In recent years, the city has been subjected to insurgency attacks; the war had resulted in a substantial loss of historical artifacts as well. As of 2018, Baghdad was listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live, ranked by Mercer as the worst of 231 major cities as measured by quality-of-life; the name Baghdad is pre-Islamic, its origin is disputed. The site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persianhamlet called Baghdad, the name which would come to be used for the Abbasid metropolis. Arab authors, realizing the pre-Islamic origins of Baghdad's name looked for its roots in Persian, they suggested various meanings, the most common of, "bestowed by God". Modern scholars tend to favor this etymology, which views the word as a compound of bagh "god" and dād "given", In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog "god", while the second can be traced to dadāti.

A similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt, known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning "gift of Mithra". There are a number of other locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan or a village called Bagh-šan in Iran; the name of the town Baghdati in Georgia shares the same etymological origins. A few authors have suggested older origins for the name, in particular the name Bagdadu or Hudadu that existed in Old Babylonian, the Babylonian Talmudic name of a place called "Baghdatha"; some scholars suggested Aramaic derivations. When the Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace; this was the official name on coins and other official usage, although the common people continued to use the old name. By the 11th century, "Baghdad" became the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis. After the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital from which they could rule.

They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, on 30 July 762 the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city. It was built under the supervision of the Barmakids. Mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying: "This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, where my descendants will reign afterward"; the city's growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors: it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, it had an abundance of water in a dry climate. Water exists on both the north and south ends of the city, allowing all households to have a plentiful supply, uncommon during this time. Baghdad eclipsed Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians, located some 30 km to the southeast. Today, all that remains of Ctesiphon is the shrine town of Salman Pak, just to the south of Greater Baghdad.

Ctesiphon itself had replaced and absorbed Seleucia, the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, which had earlier replaced the city of Babylon. According to the traveler Ibn Battuta, Baghdad was one of the largest cities, not including the damage it has received; the residents are Hanbal. Bagdad is home to the grave of Abu Hanifa where there is a cell and a mosque above it; the Sultan of Bagdad, Abu Said Bahadur Khan, was a Tartar king. In its early years, the city was known as a deliberate reminder of an expression in the Qur'an, when it refers to Paradise, it took four years to build. Mansur assembled engineers and art constructionists from around the world to come together and draw up plans for the city. Over 100,000 construction workers came to survey the plans. July was chosen as the starting time because two astrologers, NaubakhtAhva

Lüdenscheid is a city in the Märkischer Kreis district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the Sauerland region. — Geography — Lüdenscheid is located on the saddle of the watershed between the Lenne and Volme rivers which both empty into the …

The German Empire, also known as Imperial Germany, was the German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918. — It was founded in 1871 when the south German states …

Otto von Bismarck, the visionary statesman who unified Germany with the help of his skillful political moves and the exploitation of encountered opportunities

The Weimar Republic is an unofficial historical designation for the German state from 1918 to 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. The official name of the republic remained …

A 50 million mark banknote issued in 1923, worth approximately one U.S. dollar when issued, would have been worth approximately 12 million U.S. dollars nine years earlier, but within a few weeks inflation made the banknote practically worthless

Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the …

The Abwehr was the German military intelligence service for the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1945. Despite the fact that the Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Germans altogether from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage …

Secret radio service of the OKW Amt Ausland/Abwehr (Foreign Affairs/Defence Office)

The Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer, the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term …

The blond-haired, blue-eyed Werner Goldberg (1919–2004) was used in Wehrmacht recruitment posters as the "ideal German soldier". He was later "dismissed" after it became known that he was a "Mischling ersten Grades" as defined by the Nuremberg Laws, having half Jewish ancestry.

German resistance to Nazism was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active resistance with plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power by assassination and …

The Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the …

The Battle of Stalingrad was the largest confrontation of World War II, in which Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. — Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on …

The Barmaley Fountain, one of the symbols of Stalingrad, in 1943, right after the battle

German snipers at Voronezh, June 1942

Situation briefing near Stalingrad between a German company commander and a platoon leader

German infantry and a supporting StuG III assault gun during the battle

Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries.Theology is the study of deities or their scriptures in order to discover what they have revealed about themselves. It occupies itself with the unique content …

A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or …

The Western Front was the main theatre of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was …

The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was united with the new Wehrmacht. — Founding — At the end of World War I, the forces of the German Empire were disbanded, the men returning home individually or in …

General Hans von Seeckt, Chief of the Reichswehr together with infantry men at a Reichswehr manoeuvre in Thuringia, 1926

Reichswehr army structure 1920–21 to 1934

Reichswehr soldiers in a military exercise, September 1930

Reichswehr soldiers swear the Hitler oath in August 1934, with hands raised in the traditional schwurhand gesture

Job Wilhelm Georg Erdmann Erwin von Witzleben was a German officer, by 1940 in the rank of Generalfeldmarschall, and army commander in the Second World War. A leading conspirator in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was …

On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The name Operation Valkyrie—originally referring to part of the conspiracy—has become associated …

Sicherheitsdienst, full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Originating in 1931, the organization was the first Nazi …

Uniform jacket of a SD Unterscharführer of the SS with the typical SD sleeve insignia and the shoulder boards of the Schutzpolizei

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is approximately 8,765,000, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran …

A view of Baghdad from the print collection in Travels in Asia and Africa, etc. (ed. J. P. Berjew, British Library)

Mohammed Amin al-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine.Al-Husseini was the scion of a family of Jerusalemite notables, who trace their origins to the eponymous grandson of Muhammad. After receiving an …

Amin al-Husseini (1929)

Arab protest delegations against British policy in Palestine during 1929

The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, later came to be known as "The Great Revolt", was a nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration of the Palestine Mandate, demanding Arab independence and the end of the policy of open-ended Jewish …

British soldiers on an armoured train car with two Palestinian Arab prisoners

Anschluss refers to the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The word's German spelling, until the German orthography reform of 1996, was Anschluß and it was also known as the Anschluss Österreichs (pronunciation, English: Annexation of …

The Oberkommando des Heeres was the High Command of the German Army during the Era of Nazi Germany. It was founded in 1935 as a part of Adolf Hitler's re-militarisation of Germany. From 1938 OKH was, together with OKL (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, High Command of the Air …

The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany's Saar district. The Phoney period began with the declaration …

The Invasion of Poland, known in Poland as the September Campaign or the 1939 Defensive War, and in Germany as the Poland Campaign, was an invasion of Poland by Germany that marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion …

Wilhelm Josef Franz Ritter von Leeb was a German field marshal and World War II war criminal. During Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union—Leeb commanded Army Group North, which advanced through the Baltic States towards Leningrad, eventually …

Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a Field Marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. — Born into a Prussian family with a long military tradition, Rundstedt entered the Prussian Army in 1892. During World War I, he served mainly as a staff …

The German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the German annexation of Czechoslovakia's border regions known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. German leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this action was the alleged privations suffered by …

The German Army was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht, the regular German Armed Forces, from 1935 until it was demobilized and later dissolved in August 1946. During World War II, a total of about 13 million soldiers served in the …

The German Cross was instituted by Adolf Hitler on 28 September 1941. It was awarded in two divisions: gold for repeated acts of bravery or achievement in combat; and silver for distinguished non-combat war service. The German Cross in Gold ranked higher than the Iron …

German Cross in Silver, Gold, and with Diamonds. Post-war de-nazified versions below.

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and a main architect of the Holocaust. He was an SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei (Senior Group Leader and …

Johannes Albrecht Blaskowitz was a German general during World War II and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. — Commander in Chief in Occupied Poland in 1939–1940, he had written several memoranda for the German High Command …

Moritz Albrecht Franz Friedrich Fedor von Bock was a German field marshal who served in the German army during the Second World War. Bock served as the commander of Army Group North during the Invasion of Poland in 1939, commander of Army Group B during the Invasion …

Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch was a German field marshal and the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army during the Nazi era. Born into an aristocratic military family, Brauchitsch entered army service in 1901. During World War I, he served with …

The Brandenburgers were members of the Brandenburg German special forces unit during World War II. Originally the unit was formed by and operated as an extension of the military's intelligence organ, the Abwehr. Members of this unit took part in seizing operationally …

Karl Strecker was a German general during World War II who commanded several army corps on the Eastern Front. A career military and police professional, he fought in World War I and then served in the paramilitary Security Police of the Weimar Republic. Strecker …

A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favour of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to …